If someone says I’m doing this out of faith, I say, Why don’t you do it out of conviction?

(See article: Christopher Hitchens and Unitarian minister Marilyn Sewell interview.

…I belong to what is a significant minority of human beings: Those who are—as Pascal puts it in his Pensées, —“so made that they cannot believe.” ; …there must be respect for those who simply can’t bring themselves to find meaning in phrases like “the Holy Spirit.”

Well, could it be that some people are “so made” for faith. and you are so made for the intellectual life?

I don’t have whatever it takes to say things like “the grace of God.” All that’s white noise to me, not because I’m an intellectual. For many people, it’s gibberish. . . . As so far the most highly evolved of the primates, we do seem in the majority to have a tendency to worship, and to look for patterns that lead to supernatural conclusions. Whereas, I think that there is no supernatural dimension whatever…

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…but these people claim to be motivated and sustained by their faith. Do you deny that?

If someone says I’m doing this out of faith, I say, Why don’t you do it out of conviction?